Canine (Conundrum)
by The Readers Muse
Summary: "You're kidding," he whispered hoarsely.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own CBS's "Zoo". Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.

 **Authors Note #1:** Inspired by this prompt: _"_ _I don't know how to tell you this but the reason you didn't see me in our last reincarnation cycle is because for some fucked up reason I was reincarnated as your dog."_ – Set 1x01 "First Blood," directly after their first meeting in the Zoo.

 **Warnings:** reincarnation au, adult language, humor, pre/established relationship, past lives.

 **Canine (Conundrum)**

"So, where were you last time?" he asked, taking a swig of his mostly forgotten beer as he squeezed her hand gently under the table. Still high on it. On finding her. Content to tangle feet between the bar stools and soak it in as she refused to let go of his hand. Petting at his knuckles distractedly as every part of her that could, draped over him from across the small circular table.

They hadn't wanted to let each other go.

Ever since that moment on the bridge they'd been inseparable. When she'd stuttered through the syllables of his old name and the new above the Lion Enclosure. Looking down at him like he was- _god- everything_. Just like they'd always been, only this time, he felt three times as greedy. Feeling her absence the last time like a sear to the soul, even if it was only through the muddled backwash of memories.

"I waited for you," he murmured, quiet and still just a little bit breathless as she gently pulled away. Placed her hand - open palmed and eager - across the table instead. Meeting his outstretched fingers halfway before she laced them together. Fixing him with a knowing look and that sweet little smile of hers.

The kind of look that told him she knew exactly what he was thinking.

It reminded him of the double vision he'd been forced to work through when he'd looked up and caught sight of her. Seeing her as she was, tall, leggy and confident. But also how she'd been, that last first time. With her hair up in an elegant roll and her pastel-silk dress rippling in the prairie wind as they stood quietly together. Side by side as they looked out over distant hills and a building storm on the cusp of breaking ground on an evening-stilled town. Enjoying the relative quiet of the veranda as the world finally started to make sense for the first time ever.

He'd known her then.

Just like he always did.

Just like she always knew him.

They'd always managed to find each other.

It wasn't always perfect, but until the last time, his last life, he'd always had her.

"I know," she answered. Face twisting, awkward, apologetic and strangely nervous as she fiddled with the label of her beer. Already half gone and fizzing weakly beside her.

He didn't catch on to it immediately, too busy memorizing every moment of how she'd run at him. Taking the samples he'd dropped in shock as an invitation as she disappeared down the bridge and through an employee-only hatch. Sandles _thock-thocking_ down the concrete incline, through the gate and across the grass before he caught her in mid-run. Pulling her up and into his chest as she sobbed, happy and wordless against his shirt. Squeezing the life out of him as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Throwing her legs around his waist until he was forced to hike her up. Holding her fully in his arms like he had so many times before. Wanting to make sure he remembered every detail for later.

 _Christ, he'd missed her._

The moment he'd heard her voice air out in person he'd known. She'd had the advantage this time around. He'd tease her about it later, he knew. It was their private little game. She'd seen his picture before she'd called him. Meaning she'd stumbled through that interview request knowing _exactly_ who she was talking to. Probably flushed and fidgeting, pacing around and around like she was known to do when she was excited, while he was on the other end none the wiser. Leaning back in his chair, bored and tired until something in her voice made him-

"What is it?" he asked, frowning as her expression finally sunk through the lingering waves of euphoria to raise the vague wail of alarm bells.

She whistled out a breath between her teeth. Concentrated and forced as she met his eyes for a long moment before ducking away again and nodding back to her beer. Still gripping his hand tightly as he quietly set his own aside and took her hand in both of his. Letting her work through it without interruption.

"I just- honestly, I don't know how to say this," she finally replied. Laughing a little before looking up and studying his expression. Looking for something maybe. Some expression or tell. Something that would tell her how much to say and how to go about saying it.

Inwardly he sobered. Steeling himself for it. For the explanation that she'd found someone else. That she'd been a world away. That accidents had happened and she'd decided to make a go of it with whoever she'd settled with. That she'd died before she could find him. It wouldn't be the first time, after all. It'd happened before, the last time it'd been him bleeding out in a foxhole in the Battle of Delville Wood during World War I - so he supposed she had the right to get even. There were any number of explanations that would have kept them apart. Wasn't like they were guaranteed to find each other every time or anything.

And, hell, considering the circumstances it wasn't like he could judge.

Not with Audra and Clem.

He wanted to say he was ready for it.

Ready to hear what he knew would eventually happen, only-

"Do you remember Ginny? Your um- your dog...the Brittany?" she finally asked, looking earnest as her fingers tightened fractionally around his.

He blinked.

 _Whatever he'd been expecting, it hadn't been this._

"Gin? What about her-" he started, his surprised frown etching itself fractionally deeper. Cutting himself off abruptly as something nudged at very corner of his awareness.

 _Wait, what?_

"How did you know about-"

Her face was back to apologetic again. Wincing a bit as her eyes glittered with barely contained mirth. Like she didn't know how he'd react if she burst out laughing. Nervous, unsure and-

His beer slid right through his fingers and clunked across the worn table top with a loud sound. Wobbling unsteadily in devolving half-circles through the moisture rings as he looked at her in disbelief.

No.

 _No fucking way._ _  
_  
His thoughts flashed back to the perky Brittany he'd called his own in his last life. A pretty little thing with a gorgeous coat of thick orange and white fur that he'd loved to bury his fingers in. A dog that'd never known when to quit when belly rubs and rubber balls were involved. Who'd found him rather than the other way around.

It'd been the one thing he'd always told people when they asked. He'd been out on a run when a thin, big-eared pup started trailing after him. Whimpering, hungry and insistent. And absolutely refusing to leave, crying even, when he'd started driving to the shelter the next morning. She'd been nothing but a smattering of dots and sharp puppy teeth back then. But from then on, she'd been his.

 _And just like today, she'd found him._

"You're kidding," he whispered hoarsely.

"Afraid not," she answered, gesturing to the bartender for two shots of whiskey as he simmered in the after images of nearly sixteen years of memory. He'd had her for sixteen years before she'd passed. He remembered that last morning when-

 _Jesus Christ._

She waited until the bartender slid their next round over and tottered away before leaning in again.

"The only thing I wanted to do more than just be with you was to tell you it was me. That I was there. God, it was torture listening to you. I remember bits and pieces of it, things translated in a weird way. _But I knew you._ You talked about us. _Me._ You wondered where I was. What I might be doing. …I hated seeing you so lonely. But-"

His mouth was still open. Gaping surprise and fractured disbelief as beads of moisture coasted down the sides of his abandoned bottle. Fingers lax around empty air as she pushed a shot glass into the void and curled his fingers gently around it. Giving him something to hold as she downed her shot with welcome ease.

"I didn't know that was even possible," he finally admitted, floundering a little as a surge of emotion – something that rose tangy and thick behind his eyes – threatened to blind him.

"Neither did I," she replied throatily, nudging at his shot glass again until he humored her and tossed it back in one go. Feeling the burn all the way down his throat before she continued. "The food you fed me was shit by the way."

His throat itched. Feeling it coming up in advance as he went and did something that was rare no matter what life, time-line or universe. He threw back his head and _laughed_. Chuckling deep, real and strong as that same tinkling little laugh trickled in to join him. Taking him back as the pressure of her hand in his kept him soundly in the present as the years condensed and made themselves whole around them.

 _Wasn't that just something else?_

 _What a fucking world, huh?_

* * *

 **A/N:** Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – This story is now complete.

 **Reference:**

Ginny was a popular dog name from the 1960s-1980s.


End file.
